Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Coat 8-inch springform pan with nonstick spray. Beat 1 ½ cups sugar, cream cheese, butter and vanilla at medium speed until well blended, about 4 minutes. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating after each addition. Combine flour, baking powder and salt. Add flour mixture to creamed mixture and beat at low speed until blended. Combine remaining ¼ cup sugar with cinnamon. Combine 2 tablespoons cinnamon mixture with apples and stir apples into batter. I goofed and added all the sugar and cinnamon to the apples. I mixed up more sugar and cinnamon for the top. Pour batter into prepared pan and sprinkle with remaining cinnamon sugar. Bake 1 hour and 15 minutes or until cake pulls away from sides of pan. Cool cake on wire rack and, because cake is so tender, cut with serrated knife.

Yields 12 servings._____________________

Okay, baking a cake for an hour and fifteen minutes on a hot and humid day probably isn't the best idea but I did it and it was worth it. I did goof up a bit and ended up with more sugar and cinnamon in the cake than it should have had but it was still very good. This is a very moist cake, full of apples. I liked the fact that this recipe used fat-free cream cheese instead of all butter or oil, as most of the other recipes I checked out use. I think there's room to lighten it up even more, cutting down on the sugar, subbing whole-wheat flour for some of the AP flour and maybe even using 8 oz of fat-free cream cheese and only two oz of butter.

I really wanted to make Dorie's Apple Turnovers but I couldn't bring myself to use that much butter and sour cream in a recipe. Not right now. Someday.

This is my contribution to Sweetnick's ARF/5-A-Day Tuesday this week, even though it's only Monday. I usually try to post something appropriate right on Tuesday but I can't always get my act together.

I love this cookbook. It has no pictures and the index isn't very good but it's full of great recipes, mostly for brunch-type foods. It claims over 1500 recipes but there are repeats. It's set up by state and then by inn or B&B. The index isn't the best so it can be difficult to find a recipes in it but the recipes are worth the hassle.

I think I now understand the lure of bed & breakfasts. It's for the food - there just isn't enough room in our daily lives to fit in all these great brunch recipes.________________

I went to the auction of Friday. The bad weather held off. I'm glad I went because as the cookbook man was bagging my books, he told me that it was his last day. His wife wasn't doing well and he wasn't making any money there (it's a one day a week thing and he has a table full of used 'stuff' so I'm not surprised). Oh well, I'm actually relieved not to be tempted by his cookbooks every week. There are other booksellers there so the temptation isn't completely gone.________________

I've joined the Foodie Blogroll started by Jenn over at The Leftover Queen. As you can see if you look at it on my sidebar, something is amiss and the font is too small to read here. The problem seems to be my problem and I'm working on it. If anyone has any clues on a fix, I'd appreciate it. I think the Foodie Blogroll is a great idea. I like having a huge list of food blogs at my fingertips.

9 comments:

That's a good question. It depends on my mood. Right now I'm on a Granny Smith kick. I usually like Gala, but it's been hard to find the ones in the bag that are decent...most of them are bruised. Pink Lady is also good it you can find them.

There is a very hard to find apple called "Wine sap". They are very small, hard as rocks, and they have a sweet tart flavour that just sings on your tongue.

It seems they are not a popular eating apple (most people are only familiar with supermarket varieties these days) so many orchards no longer grow them, or sell them if they still have stands of the trees. Mostly I think they are sold for cider.

Dances, I remember Winesap apples from way back when. For a long time, all we saw were Delicious and Winesap - but that was ages ago. Funny, I was just thinking the same thing, how they are no where to be found now. When I was a kid I liked them best because they weren't "all sweet and mushy-like". Now, I like the ones we have.

I like the Gala apples but don't eat them too often (I like other fruits better).

Apples, however, are one of the staples in my house that we cannot ever be out of. My youngest will pitch a fit he doesn't have an apple before he brushes his teeth before going to bed. I think we go through about 25 - 30 apples a week (yikes!)